Quotes About Music

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music.

At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player.

I was a virtuoso of all the folk-blues guitar styles by the time I reached 17.

My parents and two sisters were great musicians but my family's approach to music was always way more academic than mine. They were virtuoso players. But they were all impressed that I could sit down at a piano and find a melody. We had a different approach, we had mutual envy.

People say to me now, 'Oh, you've given up the piano.' How can you? Music is a virus.

Ultimately with our band, it's word of mouth. It seems to be the largest cause of The Hip outbreak - if we can align ourselves with a virus.

There's a degree to which music bypasses our rational brain and accesses our emotional core in a way that's really visceral and allows you to make a strong impression on people without necessary delivering information.

Most of the time, I can't listen to the song after the video's done. Sometimes I'll hear a song that I've worked on at a restaurant or on the radio, and I'll have this visceral physical reaction.

It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous.

You go to a Springsteen show, and half of the people are there to party and forget about their cares, and they're being drawn to this visceral experience. And then the other half, you know, has lived and died with his 'Nebraska' album and considers him one of the greatest poets.

Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There's just something about art - photography, painting, music, plays - whatever you see, sometimes there's a gut reaction that's more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can't explain that reaction. It's like what happens when you fall in love.

Hip-hop and electronic music are so similar, in the fact that they're both very visceral, have so much bass; a lot of times, it's the same tempos. The culture and some of the sound design is different but a lot of times, it's the same stuff.

There's a great energy and drive that takes precedence in a lot of rock and pop. It's about making a strong visceral connection. That's something that I think great classical music can have, too.

I wasn't always totally interested solely in music as a sort of visceral expression of people in unison and synchronized, a federated expression of a group of people. I loved it as a wallflower, as a fan, but when I was in it, I always felt like I wasn't built for it.

I've got this diverse education, growing up in classical music and existing between that and music that is more visceral, so for sure, I've always been interested in music from other cultures.

Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.

It's different for people who have not seen a symphony conductor conduct from a chair. I feel very connected to the orchestra in a way that a conductor sometimes does not feel. I think it's more visceral.

A musical, in its true form, is where emotions reach a height where true spoken word cannot be enough, and you must sing. That's all it is. It's not posh; it's not out of your reach. It's the most visceral way to tell a story.

Whatever I do, I'm always struggling to create a visceral experience. With my music, I'm more of a live performer these days. And film is such a different thing. It's where people sit in a dark theater. I want them to feel me as viscerally as if they were at a live show.

I try not to obfuscate or to be to obscure or to be too cerebral. I like to work on a visceral, emotional level.

I remember George Jones singing on television, but not any of the songs he sang. What I remember was my visceral reaction to him, the intensity of my distaste.

Flamenco is the most honest and visceral music. You have to be sincere when you sing it. If you're not, it doesn't work.

I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.

It is very important that people understand how important flamenco is to the Gypsy community. There have been some amazing Gypsy artists. It's important that we give visibility to that, but at the same time people have to be fair and recognise that Paco de Lucia was the biggest guitar player in this style of music in the world and he wasn't Gypsy.